Friday, 18 December 2015

The Need For Coordination?

Trevelyan Micah, field agent of the Stellar Union Coordination Service, outlines the problem:

"'A dozen or more highly civilized races, scattering themselves over this part of the Galaxy, intercourse limited to spaceships that may need weeks to get from one sun to the next - and nothing else. Not even the strong economic ties which did, after all, bind Europe to its colonies. Cross-purposes are breeding which are someday going to clash - they've already done so in several cases, and it's meant annihilation." (The Peregrine, Chapter XII, p. 105)

By why? If there is no economic competition, then what is there to fight about? Can different racial spheres not interpenetrate neutrally or peacefully like those of oxygen-breathers and hydrogen-breathers in the Technic History? If there is no mutual comprehension, then a few scientifically inclined beings will try to observe and study the "otherlings" whereas most perhaps will continue with their version of "business as usual," so why should there be any cross-purposes or clashes? The Peregrine shows us one fundamental conflict but why should such conflicts be the norm?

When we read that some of the slave-owning Erulanites are selling spaceships to human beings "'...from somewhere in the Cross...'" who "'...don't wear clothes...'" and "'...have the ways of natives...'" (Chapter IX, p. 84), we might begin to suspect that the Lorinyans are the enemy and have already planted a spy on the Nomads.